• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.125-143
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• 2017

This program aimed at preparing the pre-service teachers to teach about North Korean family life culture to secondary school students, by promoting the understanding and acceptance of cultural differences between the two Koreas. Based on the literature review, the educational contents were developed to reflect general aspects of North Korean family life. The program was implemented with 35 undergraduate students in a home economics teacher education program. The program consists of 15 units of 150-minute instructional sessions. The first three introductory sessions dealt with the definitions of family life culture and multiculturalism, as well as a historical review of South-North relationship. The following nine sessions were devoted to North Korean family life culture in five different domains: consumption and leisure, family and child-caring, food and dietary life, housing and neighborhood life, and clothing/fashion. During the final two weeks, pre-service teachers conducted mock-teaching. For evaluation, pre- and post-session scores on general teaching efficacy and understanding of cultural differences were compared using paired t-tests. The pre-/post-test results confirmed that the program was successful in promoting the understanding and acceptance of cultural differences between two Koreas of pre-service teachers.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.433-445
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• 2024

This study aims to compare and analyze the educational contents of the material area in the elementary science curriculums of North and South Korea. The research subjects are materials and motion and energy (partial) areas of the revised science curriculum of South Korea in 2022 and materials around us and science in daily life (partial) areas of the nature and education program of North Korea in 2013. This study compared the elements of the educational content of the material domain between North and South Korea according to the grade. Furthermore, the reflection of the material domain goals of North and South Korea at the international level was analyzed using the evaluation framework of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2023 for the material content domains for fourth-grade elementary schools. Four teachers who majored in elementary science education and one expert in science education participated in the analysis. The results are as follows. First, in terms of the properties of matter, the content covered in the curriculum of North and South Korea differed in application period by grade and in the scope and level of content. Second, regarding material change, North Korea did not cover acids and bases but included methods for speeding up dissolution. Third, North Korea reflected the goal of the TIMSS 2023 properties of materials more highly than South Korea. Fourth, similar to the results for the analysis on the properties of materials, North Korea reflected the goal of the TIMSS 2023 for changes of materials more highly than did South Korea. In conclusion, the elements and timing of application of the material contents differed between North and South Korea, and the degree of reflection of goals at the international level was found to be higher for North Korea. In the future, this study hopes that cooperation and research on the development of integrated science and curriculum will occur along with the revitalization of educational exchange between North and South Korea from the perspective of the preparation for unification beyond the ideological conflict between them.